I made a move recently to a more traditional real estate firm. EasyStreet is more retail oriented and not so much on the REO/bank owned property listings and sales. That said, I'm still very active with my investor clients and look forward to continuing our work together.
The market has definitely swung right into a retail setting. That is, more and more buyers are locals looking to change their current housing situation and finding that now's probably the best time to do that. Mortgage rates are still at all time lows but inventory is low too so sellers are pretty firm on their pricing. In some pockets of the metro area, we're seeing a 15% year on year increase in pricing! As a result, there's been yield compression on properties being bought for investment purposes and some investors are getting frustrated because of the move of large institutional investors like Blackstone into the market.
Since about mid summer 2012 we've seen the inventory level decrease month by month. Most seems to be attributable to banks moving to allowing more short sales - letting owners work out the sale of their home for themselves - and also the "robo signing" fiasco we witnessed being resolved over the last 12-18 months. Of course, with short sales the bank still has to approve the sale and it still seems to be taking an exorbitantly long time to get to that approval.
So 2013 is starting off strong. I've been very busy since right after Christmas. How long will it last? Who knows? Investors are losing the yields they've been aiming for since entering the market 6, 12, 18 months ago. Some are accepting it and are still active while others are sitting back and regrouping. More traditional buyers are waking up after five years of forced sleep to start shopping around for a new home for their growing families. They're moving from the burbs to city locations because they can now afford to live closer to work. They can now afford an older home they can fix up. They can now afford a larger home.
Welcome to 2013 and the "new world order" of residential real estate. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. I'm here to help.
John Breaux
+1 678-230-9613
jsbreaux@gmail.com
Information contained herein is the opinion of the author. Any statistics relating to the Atlanta market or individual properties should be verified independently. Please order an inspection whenever considering a property purchase.
